


te volo

by mistycodec



Series: and you say "come here and sit down," [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 06:17:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistycodec/pseuds/mistycodec
Summary: In which Bond and Q do fieldwork, or, the aftermath of Q sleeping with Bond and it’s everything he’s ever dreamed of, and then Bond leaves and Q still has to get up and go to work the next day.





	te volo

There’s an incessant pinging noise in Q’s right ear and he has half a mind to leave Bond’s call unanswered, but he taps the comm anyway and sighs heavily as the doors to the lift slide shut and he slumps against the wall, letting his bags drop to the floor.

“Please, 007, it’s been a terribly long flight and I’d really like to find my room and have a rest.”

He can hear Bond chuckling on the other end, and Q has half a mind to tell the agent to sod off before Bond finally speaks. “And what’s the harm in having a quick chat with a colleague?”

“You know _bloody_ well what the harm is. I’ve spent four hours on a cramped, rattling coach seat and several more after that on a bus that smelt horribly of manure, I’ve half a mind to castrate M once we’ve returned for lacking the foresight to alert me sooner about being assigned to fieldwork so I could book myself proper transportation, and you’re asking me if I want to have a _chat_.”

Bond’s responding laughter is enough to force Q to cut the connection with an indignant huff, and Bond’s already pinging him again before the lift doors can even open to Q’s floor. Q waits through one, two, three blips then answers with a reluctant groan.

“Apologies, Q, I wasn’t aware you’d had such a rough time coming in.”

“You wouldn’t, would you, not from your first-class seat and chauffeured drive into town. I should have switched out seating arrangements and made _you_ sit with the lambs.” The only reason Q hasn’t hung up on Bond again is because his hands are full with luggage as he limps down the hall to his room and he cannot tap twice at the device in his ear to shut Bond up for five bloody seconds. He notes to himself, mentally, that he’ll have to work on voice-controlled comms when he gets back to Q-Branch. For now, he squints through smudged lenses for the placard that directs him to room towards the end of a long and winding hallway.

“Oh, they were lambs now, were they?

“Yes, 007, _lambs_ , and I dare say I don’t need to elaborate.”

Q drops his bags again and rummages in his pockets for the room key before giving it a vehement swipe through the card reader and nudging the door open with his foot. The large windows drawn with blackout curtains and the plush couch in the sitting room is a welcome sight, and Q barely gives a thought to where he’s tossing his bags before he’s shrugged off his coat and collapses onto the couch.

“Well then, perhaps you should make yourself comfortable while I go have a look ‘round,” Bond says finally after Q has settled in to a mostly comfortable sprawled position along the length of the couch. Q finds himself nodding before he realizes Bond can’t see a nod over the comm, and he mumbles a very drowsy _mmhm_ in response.

Even after all the trouble Q had been through to get to Savona, some part of him had to admit it felt good to get out of Six once in a while, breathe in different air and sleep in a ridiculously posh hotel room that was nothing like his homely flat back in London. Q wonders, idly, if this is what it’s always like for his agents.

“I’d join you but I’m afraid I’m much too tired to extract myself from this rather comfortable couch. You’ll have to go it alone, I’m afraid.”

“That’s alright,” Bond replies, “I’m quite used to doing these things without a Quartermaster in my ear, you know.”

“Says the one with the better room and the more comfortable couch.”

“That’s hardly my fault, I’m not the one that booked it, am I?”

“Cheeky bastard,” Q smiles, rather tiredly. It’s quite a few minutes later, after Q has already closed his eyes and has barely started to drift off before he speaks again. “007, I don’t suppose…”

“Yes?”

Q squeezes his eyes tight and presses his lips together in a flat line, turning the words over and over in his head. _Don’t, you know you can’t, he’s not going to, there’s no bloody point—_

It’s a purely selfish request, one Q cannot help but ask, now that they are so far away from Six, and in the end it just slips out unintended. “I don’t suppose…you’d see me off to bed, would you?”

Bond falls silent in a way that Q almost thinks he’s pulled out his comm, but when Bond does finally speak, Q’s heart sinks into his shoes.

“I should be going. Might as well scope the place out before tomorrow.”

“…yes, of course. I’ll leave you to that, then.”

Q almost doesn’t hear the line fall silent, but when he’s sure Bond is no longer listening Q allows himself a choked, almost angry sob as he scrubs a hand down his face, kicking out in frustration at the arm of the couch before growing still. _Of course he doesn’t, why would he, he’s James_ bloody _Bond and you can’t get him out of your head—_

 _It was one time, dammit, he let himself go for one time, and you_ let _him do it—_

Q’s limbs suddenly feel encased in lead, and he no longer has the strength to do anything but sink further into the couch and tuck his head into the divot of a throw pillow. He wants to seek Bond out, but the fight is gone from his bones, and before he can even think to remove his glasses, Q succumbs to sleep.

 

              He awakes from a fitful slumber long after the sun has set to voices in his right ear, and it faintly occurs to Q that Bond must have forgotten to remove his comm after Q had gone to bed. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Q fumbles around in the dark for the lampswitch and opens his mouth to tell Bond to shut off his damn earwig, _some_ people are trying to get some shut-eye, when he hears something that chills his blood ice-cold.

_There’s a woman in the room with Bond._

Q can hear her voice, soft and lilting, every flirtatious word she whispers to Bond, and then Bond himself replying in turn, voice suddenly very husky and low in a way that’s got Q stumbling over his feet and collapsing onto the floor, nearly knocking into the lamp on the way down.

Q’s fingers curl into the loose carpet fibers and the wretched feeling in the pit of his stomach returns as Bond whispers lowly in the woman’s ear just how he plans to fuck her, and it shouldn’t shock him, really, Q’s heard this routine many times before today without hardly batting an eye. Everyone knew Bond has sex for information, but this time, this time Bond’s words have Q feeling as if he’s going to be sick.

In his small, cluttered flat, amidst tangled bedsheets and a tossed duvet, Bond had breathed the same lines in his ear too, and it hadn’t taken but a fraction of a heartbeat for Q to surrender to what he’d wanted, yearned for months.

God, what an utter _fool_ he’d been.

He can hear Bond maneuvering the woman onto a bed, letting out a low growl as he does so, and Q’s cock traitorously throbs in response. It’s all Q can do to bite his lip and keep silent as Bond strips her, then claims her. He presses his head against the carpet and chances a ragged, shaky breath, trying very hard not to rut into the floor. Thankfully Bond doesn’t seem to notice, as he’s currently very engrossed in taking the woman apart, piece by piece, in words Q almost knows by heart.

Q could leave the connection open, listen to the way Bond breathes and moves against the sheets, and pretend there isn’t a woman beneath him. He could close his eyes and drift back to that evening he’d found Bond in his flat, bleeding out in the bath, and afterwards how Bond had pulled Q into a searing kiss that tasted heavily of scotch. In his right ear, Bond moans and Q is inexplicably harder than he’s been in months, and he almost gives in to the pure want that’s coursing through his veins to knead himself through his trousers.

Instead, Q rips the comm from his ear and throws it across the room, uncaring if it breaks as the earpiece smacks against the wall with a sharp _clack_. He storms out, pretends that Bond isn’t fucking someone three doors down from him, and his feet carry him all the way to the bar where he orders a glass of scotch, and another, and yet another still, downing them until his throat burns of it and he can no longer remember the sound of the woman in his ear, only the intoxicating taste of Bond’s lips against his own.

 

              Q finally gets to see the woman the following day, thankfully at a different bar than the one he’d drank at the night before. She’s tall and slender, wearing a deep red dress with a plunging neckline, one that’s got several men turning their heads in her direction as she boldly slides into the stool next to his.

“You are the Quartermaster, correct?”

Q’s grip on his own glass tightens, annoyed with how loudly she’s just announced to the whole sodding world his identity. It does nothing to help the vestiges of a hangover that pounds behind his eyes, though he greets her with an easy smile anyway, just to keep up appearances. The only reason Q is still in the same room is because she has information that MI6 is desperate to get its hands on, and Q is the only one able to crack it.

“Quentin,” he offers, reaching out to shake her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” the woman replies, and she gives her own name, though whether it is from the din of the people around him or from Bond’s voice in his ear, Q does not hear it and does not ask for it again. Like his own given name, hers is almost assuredly fake. Q will know this woman, this temporary armistice for all of a few days, and then she will disappear off the map as if she had never existed to begin with. There is no point to committing such a name and a face to memory, not when she still smells of Bond’s expensive cologne.

What he does do is offer her a drink, one she gladly accepts.

“I’ve heard a lot about you from Mister Bond,” she says once the drink is in her hands, and Q fights the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’m sure it’s all been quite bog standard, that I’m here to hack your employer’s files and do quite a few other computer-y things that would take far too long to explain.”

The woman’s responding laugh is sharp, far too loud for his throbbing headache that had nearly gone away but is now steadily growing worse. Q isn’t sure if it’s her fault or the alcohol this time around. “Yes, it was something like that. ‘Youngest Quartermaster to join the ranks of Six,’ was the phrase he used, I believe.”

“Youth is no guarantee of innovation,” Q finds himself echoing before he’s realized it, and he punishes himself with another sip of his drink. Were Bond here, he’d have quirked his lips into a knowing grin and that smartass twinkle in his eye, just enough to set Q off but nothing terribly abrasive. But Bond is not here, and the private joke does nothing to soothe Q’s rattled nerves.

“Stealing my lines are you now, Q? I’m afraid that won’t work on her, though I can see why she’d be keeping you from finding our target for me. She is terribly easy on the eyes.”

Bond’s voice snaps Q out of his thoughts and he rubs his eyes, realizing Bond must have been speaking to him for ages now and he’d hardly noticed. “I’m sorry?”

“The target,” Bond repeats. “Where is he?”

“I’m looking for him now,” Q replies, focus now detouring to the mobile in his lap, rapidly swiping through security camera feeds before he stops on a wide angle shot of several blackjack tables. Q spots their target seated at the largest table, thankfully in Q’s direct line of sight from the bar. “Aha, found him.”

“A little more specific, Q.”

“Directly across from the bar, about three rows back. And if this _woefully_ shoddy image is anything to go on, he’s playing a losing game. You should have no difficulty in gaining the upper hand.”

“Mm, if that’s the case, I might even have enough time to cash in my winnings and buy a drink for Madame—”

“ _Focus_ , 007,” Q reprimands. He tells himself he’s cut Bond off to keep him on track, and not because of the woman. “I will buy the drinks, and you must do your job of winning at playing cards.”

He can hear a soft chuckle on the other end of the comm as Bond enters the line of sight of Q’s video feed. “You should be careful, Q. You know what happens if you buy a pretty girl an expensive drink.”

 _No, I wouldn’t_ Q thinks and doesn’t say. “I’ll have to keep that in mind for when I spot someone on the cameras that catches my eye.”

Q watches as the Bond on his phone scans the area for surveillance before looking directly up into the camera Q is controlling, locking eyes with it and winking. Q splutters, nearly dropping his phone, and before Q can hiss out a curse or two Bond has already slipped on his impassive mask for the evening, polished and suave and approaches the tables, waiting for the game to end before sliding into an empty seat directly across from their target. _Damn him_.

“Is he good at cards?” the woman asks, and Q takes a moment to compose himself before looking up from his lap and pocketing his phone for now.

“Terribly good. If it weren’t for the fact that he always comes back with tenfold what we give him in allowances, my employers would have had his head on a silver platter years ago.”

She laughs as if Q’s little joke is the funniest thing she’s heard in years. “Good. He should easily gain the attention of my employer, then.”

“That _does_ tend to be his modus operandi,” Q replies, more to himself than Bond’s mark.

The woman takes a sip of her drink and sizes Q up for a long moment before speaking again. "So, tell me. How long have you two been involved?"

Q nearly chokes on his drink and it takes him more than a few moments to recover. Several choice words fly through his head in rapid succession, all of which Q is sorely tempted to bite out, though he holds his tongue. It wouldn't do to blow the whole mission over a stray comment.  _Yes, we've fucked, if that's what you're implying, and I don't believe who I choose to sleep with is any of your bloody business._

“I’m sorry, _what_?”

The woman smiles at him and regards Q with eyes that almost seem to glint in the muted light of the bar. “You speak to him with such an ease one only finds in a partner. Though, if I may be frank with you, Quentin—”

 _Oh_ please _, do_ Q almost spits out, instead choosing to grasp his glass tighter still.

“—I hadn’t guessed he’d brought someone with him. From what I’ve gathered, Mister Bond doesn’t… _strike_ me as one to settle down, you know?”

While her question hardly dignifies a response, Q chooses to give the only one he knows best, in as steady as voice as possible given the circumstances. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am simply his Quartermaster, and nothing more," he says, eventually. His glasses have slipped and Q takes a moment to push them back up, stealing a quick glance at Bond, who seems to be doing very well for himself at the blackjack table. He can hear the faint voice of the dealer, the disgruntled mutterings of Bond’s target, and Bond himself in his right ear, and while normally it would be a comforting distraction Q finds himself on edge, his whole body thrumming with a nervous energy he rarely gets out in the field.

The scent of Bond’s cologne on the woman is overpowering now and Q licks his lips, fighting the urge to excuse himself to the bathroom to splash ice water on his face until the burning heat inside him bleeds out.

His gaze now lingers on Bond's hands as they slide cards across the green velvet of the table, strong, calloused and sure. He remembers those hands on his own body, once, reverently mapping out the planes and dips of his skin before cupping his arse roughly enough to leave bruises that lasted for days. Then, Bond’s hands were still marred with blood that the bathwater hadn’t completely washed away, leaving behind red stains on the pale expanses of Q’s skin, a counterpart to the red lines Q would score down Bond’s back. Hands that coaxed soft, pliant moans from his mouth, words he daren’t utter anywhere else, _to_ anyone else. Q finally swallows hard, realizing he has lingered too long, and he tears his eyes away and turns back to the woman beside him.

Q is not here to stare after Bond, to wonder about his agent and the company he chooses to keep. His task tonight is to look after Bond's mark, and make sure no harm is to come of her, reluctant though he may be. This, and nothing more.

"I see," the woman replies. She regards Q with a strange, pointed look, before returning to her drink. "Though perhaps Mister Bond doesn't think of you that way."

 

              Miraculously, the mission hadn’t gone pear-shaped this time around. Bond had snapped a man’s neck inside his room with very little fanfare, and before casino security could be alerted Q had already erased the incriminating footage with a few swift keystrokes. He was almost disappointed Bond hadn’t gotten to test out the modifications he’d made to the agent’s Walther, though perhaps it was for the best that the weapon was going to make it home in one piece.

“Job well done, 007, I really must commend you this time for managing to not expend a single bullet. Q Branch will be so pleased with your efforts this time ‘round.”

“Cheeky today, aren’t we?” Bond says in turn, and Q can almost imagine the man is smiling on the other end of the comm.

“And the files? While you might have come here just for the thrill of killing a man _I_ still have some ends left to tie up.”

“She’s got them transferring to a thumb drive now,” Bond replies. Q sags a little in relief, knowing their target hadn’t been given the chance to destroy the hard drive. In the end, the distraction of the woman had proved just enough for Bond to slip into the room and make sure that this was where the man would breathe his last. After all, there’s only so much one can do with a drive that’s been ripped out of the chassis of a laptop and been bludgeoned half to death. What would have become months of pulling overtime on data recovery had instantly been narrowed down to days, maybe hours if he was lucky.

“At this rate we might even catch our scheduled flight back to London.”

Q can almost hear the wry smile in Bond’s voice when he replies with a curt, “Why Q, you wound me, you know I’ve taken great care to improve my punctuality issues.”

“Mm, your efforts have been admirable but I’m sure there’s quite a bit of working room on that front.”

“Will you two _stop_ going at it like old biddies and do something with this damn body?!”

The woman’s sudden interjection startles Q into silence, and after a moment’s pause he hears Bond shifting around, grunting as he hoists what Q can only assume to be the target’s dead body off the floor. There’s more shuffling, the sound of a door being slid open, and, _oh no he couldn’t possibly—_

“007, are you putting that in a _closet_?”

“Well there’s no bloody other place for it,” Bond huffs, “If you’ve got any better ideas why don’t _you_ come down here and do it yourself?”

“I’d rather not, thank you. After all, I’m only here for _tech support_.”

Bond swears under his breath and goes back to attempting to shove the body of his target into the small linen closet, and Q tries to ignore the hot tingles racing down his spine at the gruff strain of Bond’s voice under duress.

 

              As agreed upon, Q meets her by the Lucky Seven slot machine. It’s an ostentatious thing, gilded with shiny gold-colored plastic and enough flashing lights and bells to trigger a migraine, but deep enough into the stacks and just perfectly out of range of the three cameras that sweep the room. The woman is there waiting for him when Q arrives. The red dress is back, though not as prim and wrinkle-free as before. Q tries not to think about where the wrinkles came from, or where else the dress has been. Instead, he swallows and holds out his right hand, awaiting the exchange of information.

The woman reaches between her cleavage with slender fingers and pulls out a thumb drive before placing it gently in Q’s palm. “I believe this is rightfully yours now, Quartermaster, as my employer is no longer around to make any use of it.”

Q pockets the drive and gives the woman a curt nod. “Thank you. I trust all the information is there? I’d hate to contact you again. We at MI6 can be very… _persistent_.”

She nods, clearly unaffected by Q’s veiled threat. “Yes, all you need is on that drive. I cannot promise it is unencrypted, though from what I understand that shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

Q knows it’s meant to be a complement but he is done playing nice, done pretending to be Bond’s polite little boffin with the quips and the gadgets and the fancy computer. Now that Q has what he came for and is no longer bound by obligation, Q immediately says the most scathing thing he can think of. “Yes, I assume Bond charms every woman he meets into bed with tales of his Quartermaster’s hacking skills.”

The woman almost smiles at that, though her eyes grow narrow and flinty, a silent warning. “It’s unbecoming to harbor jealousy in the world of espionage, Quentin. Makes you lose your head, get your agents _killed_.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Q replies with a smirk, and though the woman gives him a knowing look she backs off. What Q doesn’t expect is for her expression to melt into something softer, and she steps closer, capturing his hands in her own and giving them a gentle squeeze. Q instinctively wants to pull away but the woman has captured him in a piercing gaze, one he finds he cannot look away from.

“Please,” she says, “for me. Look after your agent. He has…such _lonely_ eyes, don’t you think?”

_…what?_

Q’s forehead wrinkles into confusion but the woman has yet to let go, so instead of pressing her further he gives a short nod, and the woman finally releases her grip on his hands. “Though I’ve enjoyed our time together, I’m afraid I must depart now. Please, enjoy your stay in Savona, _Quartermaster_.”

And with that, the woman in the red dress melts into the crowd and rows of slot machines, and is gone within seconds. Q supposes he could log into the security system at the casino and track her movements, watch her for a good long while and make sure she’s not going to compromise either of them, but he doesn’t. He’s spent the whole of this mission loathing the very air around her, the way she walks and talks and carries herself, but all that pent-up anger ebbs out of Q the moment the woman disappears, walking out of his and Bond’s life forever.

Q considers the woman’s words and wonders, briefly, if there’d ever been a Quartermaster that had lost an agent because of compromised attachments. Then, Q’s mind wanders to how many men and women alike had died because they got too close to Bond, seen things the agent had never meant for them to see, become too deeply embroiled into his life that it had killed them in the end.

 _Oh, bollocks_ Q thinks, _what have I gotten myself into?_

“Q.”

He feels a hand on his shoulder and Q whips around, startled, only to find Bond staring down at him, forehead knit into deep lines of concern.

“007?”

“I’d been calling after you for ages now. Our flight is in two hours, and we’d better get going before M starts thinking we’ve been delayed.”

Right, of course. The flight. Q gives Bond a tired smile and nods, letting out a shaky breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in. “You’ve never been one to give into M’s whingeing, and I doubt you’re going to start now.”

“What were you thinking about, just now?” Bond asks suddenly, turning the entire conversation on its head and bringing Q’s mind to a stuttering halt. “I’ve never seen you that lost in thought before.”

“Oh, just all the hours of my life I’m going to get back, now that I don’t have to restore a banged-up hard drive this time around.

Bond makes an exasperated face. “You still resent me for that, don’t you?”

“All you double-oh agents think Q-Branch are magicians that can wave our hands at hard drives that’ve been beaten with a nightstick and kicked halfway ‘round London and _poof_ , oh there comes that data M wants.”

“That was _one_ bloody time, Q—”

“If you’d just learn to return everything in one piece—”

And just like that, they fall in step together, and it’s almost as if things are back the way they once were, before Q had pulled out the dental floss stitches from Bond’s skin as Bond bled permanent stains onto the floor of Q’s bathroom. It was ironic, Q had thought, that while the blood had washed out of his clothes, and his sheets, and his skin, he could never quite manage to get it up from the tiles, no matter how hard he’d scrubbed until his arms began to feel like overcooked noodles.

He senses Bond knows his answer was a lie, but thankfully Bond lets it go and doesn’t press further. Q doesn’t think he could deal with Bond knowing the truth, not now, not tomorrow, and possibly not ever.

Bond stops in front of the lift and turns to face Q. “I’ll be in my room. You can come collect me when you’ve finished packing.”

Q can’t help the smile that forms across his lips. “Is that a promise, 007?”

“Well,” Bond replies, matching Q’s widening grin, “what do you think?”

And maybe, Q thinks, just maybe, it is.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at https://cloubleoh.tumblr.com. I also take prompts/requests over there.


End file.
